Tragic Find Made in Search for Missing Teens

SUV fell hundreds of feet off cliff
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 8, 2021 11:14 AM CDT

The search for a teenage California couple missing for almost a week came to a tragic end Tuesday when two bodies were found in an SUV that had plunged hundreds of feet off a winding mountain road. The mangled vehicle was spotted by a volunteer with a search and rescue team using a drone, KTLA reports. Sophia Rayanne Edwards and Ethan Manzano, both 19 years old, were last seen in the early hours of July 1 driving a 2007 Isuzu Ascender on the Angeles Crest Highway in the Angeles National Forest, reports People. Relatives say the couple had planned to move to Colorado over the holiday weekend.

The bodies found in the vehicle haven't been formally identified by the coroner, but authorities have confirmed that the wrecked vehicle is the couple's Ascender. Detective Matthew Pereida with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Missing Persons Unit tells NBC Los Angeles that the friend the couple had been visiting said "their demeanor was normal, nothing out of character for them." Pereida says there were no guardrails in the crash area and the couple may have accidentally driven off the mountain road. "You're surrounded by trees and other things that cover what you can see with the naked eye," he says. (More missing teen stories.)

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